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BTW, not exactly a nitpick, but I've noticed everyone I've talked to in SoCal referring to small bits of ice mixed in with rain when the temperature is around freezing as "hail." I've always heard it as "sleet" or sometimes the less-eloquent "freezing rain" elsewhere. Is this just a regional difference, or is it because SoCal peeps are generally unfamiliar with ice falling from the sky and use only one term?

I always defined hail as able to stay frozen once it hits the ground (often it'll stay a brief time, then just melt; I'd call that sleet). This kept the grass white for a good 10 minutes, I'd say. Somebody might just have photographic proof of such, in a book of faces' Miscellaneous album, seen from a front porch. :I'mJustSayin:

The front page photo today reminded me of Marvel's 2nd issue of GI Joe, with either SWAT or some more-than-just-police-officers in snow gear searching for that crazy former-cop on the run, around the Big Bear region (which has an expected high of 35 today).

BTW, not exactly a nitpick, but I've noticed everyone I've talked to in SoCal referring to small bits of ice mixed in with rain when the temperature is around freezing as "hail." I've always heard it as "sleet" or sometimes the less-eloquent "freezing rain" elsewhere. Is this just a regional difference, or is it because SoCal peeps are generally unfamiliar with ice falling from the sky and use only one term?

I know it sounds b****y, but I'm curious.

Sleet is just a raindrop that freezes on the way down, where the rain passes through a colder bit of weather on its way down. Hail is larger because it's raindrops that get carried by wind up into a colder part of the cloud over and over freezing more rain to the hailstone until it's too heavy to stay up, and the extra water frozen around the initial core makes it harder and larger. In SoCal, our weather is so warm that we generally get only hail, not sleet; you can also tell because sleet once it hits the ground melts very fast while hail takes considerably longer to melt.

Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.

Kylo Ren - came from Space Brooklyn, although he moved to Space Williamsburg before it was trendy.

The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.